Tracy with his guides after completing the Houston Half Marathon in 2019.
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NASA EMPLOYEE TRACY MINISH
supports the mission to end blindness By Kristen Mulvihill
Tracy Minish was in high school when he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a rare, inherited eye disease that causes severe visual impairment. This disease has attacked Tracy’s family for generations, with his son Carson now the fifth generation of his family to receive the diagnosis. Now, at age 65, Tracy has less than five degrees of his field of vision remaining. Often diagnosed in childhood or adolescence, RP is a group of rare, genetic disorders involving the breakdown and loss of cells in the retina. The disease changes how the retina responds to light, causing a gradual loss of vision. Despite growing up with this blinding condition, Tracy participated in football, wrestling, and track, discovering creative mechanisms to assist with navigation. “A teammate would allow me to hold onto their jersey to get into the stadium, and I would use a towel as a tether to move around with friends at night,” he recalled. To date, Tracy has completed 31 marathons with the help of a guide, including the Boston, New York, and Chicago Marathons. After graduating from the University of Georgia with a degree in Computer Science, Tracy was recruited by NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where he has remained for over 36 years. He currently serves as the Mission Control Center Operations Manager and helps to oversee space ventures,
review upcoming mission events, and supervise training simulations and test activities. To create a setting in which Tracy can succeed and prosper, NASA provides him with the assistive technologies required to perform his duties. “With the tools I have at NASA, I can manage emails, review and redline documents, create presentations, and chair meetings as well and as independently as a sighted person,” he explained. In addition to his impressive career at NASA, Tracy visits schools and organizations to advocate for individuals with disabilities. He previously served as the chair of the No Boundaries (NoBo) Employee Resource Group at NASA, a program geared towards supporting individuals with disabilities. “I am passionate about reaching out to our youth with disabilities and letting them know their dreams can be made a reality,” said Tracy. “It is our responsibility to ensure they have access to tools, training, education, and encouragement to help them reach their goals.” In 2016, Tracy and his wife Sherry were flipping through channels on the television when they stumbled across a program about the challenge to end blindness by 2020. Several researchers, including Jean Bennett, MD, PhD, F.M. Kirby Professor of Ophthalmology, were featured.
